Afterwards
by StoriesOfClara
Summary: The Doctor is gone, Clara is alone now, and her depression is slowly creeping up on her no matter how hard she tries to fight it away. TW: DEPRESSION A story of the painful effect loss and depression can have on a person, how to cope, and about how recovery is possible for everybody "everything will be okay in the end, if its not okay, then it's not the end"
1. Chapter 1

Being an English teacher made it almost impossible for Clara to not look at poems and immediately relate the delicate word choice of those poets to the events of her life. " _I admire people who choose to shine even after all the storms they've been through._ " She had tried to live by this quote every day since the fifth of March 2005, the day her mother passed away, She cried of course but she always wore a smile and it helped to carry her through; when she met the doctor it seemed as if all those clouds had finally stopped storming and rolled away into the distance, but that didn't last for long.

She never saw herself to be depressed, she wasn't even sure that was what she felt. All she knew is she felt something. Whatever this was had come back with a bite, it crept up on her one day and slapped her in the face; stomped on her heart.  
Regeneration was difficult for her. All of a sudden she had all those feelings of loss, betrayal and loneliness to deal with again and she wasn't sure how to after such an amazing few months. A buzz crash, she thought that was what people called it anyway, trying to convince herself it was all ok. It got ok again soon. Not amazing but ok. The Doctor was somehow more intriguing than ever before, it was strange to her though because this was still that same man she d fallen for yet he was so different. Excitingly different.

She'd met Danny soon after the Doctor had regenerated. At this time she was still trying to squash all those horrible new feelings into the back of her head and suddenly having a boy to focus on really helped. He helped her a lot, in ways he probably never even knew. It was so nice to be held by someone she knew cared. She loved the doctor of course but Danny was different. He was something normal for her to focus on, the travelling was extraordinary but she had worried about losing touch with normality for so long, having him around made her feel like she had a healthy balance, and she felt ok again.  
But then he died. Gone just like that. Everything she saw for her future had changed. She had nothing now except the Doctor.  
She thought about Danny a lot, what he would be doing at this very moment, if he was happy, did he ever think about her? What he would do if he could see her now. He would make some comment about being right, Clara knew that for sure. He had warned her after all.

She tried she really did try. After Danny, she wanted to be normal again. Suppress those bad feelings once more. She broke things off with the Doctor, for his sake as well as hers. She tried to get on with life and ignore that horrible sinking feeling in her chest but it wouldn't go away. She felt more lost lying in her bed at night than she ever had flying through time and space. Nothing helped, smiling and putting on her brave face didn't help, though she did it never-the-less. She made broken look beautiful, and strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings. Then, when all seemed lost, he came back again, The Doctor came back.

This was when she gave up on her idea of normality, life was never going to be the same, if she didn't have the Doctor, she had nothing. There was a special place for him in her heart, a man who would be with her at her lowest and still loved her when she wasn't very loveable. In her head, her only option at happiness was to forget everything and run away, so she did. She ran and ran and held on to the doctor with all her might. She was so brave, too brave, a hero to everybody her life touched. She saved a countless number of people but she could not be saved, she could not be fixed this time no matter how much she wanted to be. It all came crashing down around her and once again it was her own stupid fault. She was so consumed with guilt at the suffering the doctor had gone through for her she felt she had no option but to leave him once again. She'd lost everything she ever had and now she's lost the doctor too.

She cared more about strangers than herself, everything she did was for others, even in the moments she would not know to be her last, she was a tragic hero, she never asked for anything in return. More often than not she wished the doctor would've let her be hit square in the chest by that raven, she could've died right there and she wouldn't be feeling all this hurt right now. She deserved better. The saviour of worlds, of normal lives and a lonely timelord. All she wanted was to see wonders, travel the stars. She wanted to be like the Doctor until she couldn't anymore. She only ever put good into this world and got nothing back but pain and she selfishly just wanted it to be about her for once. But whenever it was about her people got hurt, that's why now, at 30 years old she was sat in a cafe. Alone.

 _"He was different once. A long time ago. Kind, yes. A hero even. A saver of worlds. But he suffered losses which hurt him. Now he prefers isolation to the possibility of pain's return."_ Clara found these words written in Ashildr's diary. It was about the Doctor. She somehow felt that she'd heard them before, and decided that this was because she related to them so much. She could never understand why the doctor chose to travel alone but now she found herself in the same situation, she definitely could.  
 _"It's all your fault you re alone, everybody abandoned you because you re so stupid and annoying and selfish. Nobody cares and it's your own fault!"_ she told herself. She was so angry.

The Doctor, the one person who truly cared, now only knew of her name all because of her, she was constantly filled with this anger, everything was fine before she mucked it all up in trap street. Or was it fine? She had become so reckless and at the time she thought it was confidence, now she saw that it definitely was not.

Her biggest fear was getting lost and she got more lost than she could ever imagine was possible. All her fears came true at the end.

 _"The songs of Clara, those memories, captured in the single strum of a guitar. Locked in the hearts of the man with thirteen faces, forgotten but remembered for an eternity, a long and lonely eternity. It seems so wrong, that the woman thrice dead, the impossible girl with the biggest heart in this universe, should not even carry a pulse, a simple sign to say "i am here." Somewhere, out there, she is living, and laughing, and the universe is a better place because Clara Oswald is laughing somewhere in it, She blew into this world on a leaf and then blew away like smoke, and her story is done. Her story is done. But her spirit, bravery, compassion, adventures, good deeds and legacy lives on. She is the legend, the fairy tales, those stories she always kept close to her heart, the stories her mother used to tell. We're all stories in the end, and hers was a good one"_

\- A note the doctor had written played on her mind every day. Ashildr found it last time she bumped into him. It hurt her. He couldn't even remember her yet he wrote this. This wasn't the truth. She wasn't laughing, she had no legacy, she had been forgotten, her story wasn't a good one, and she had no story because nobody was left to remember it. Forgotten, she d blown away like smoke and nothing was bringing her back this time. No matter how hard she wanted something or someone to.


	2. Chapter 2

There was a part of her that was desperate to know if her absence had done any damage to him. That there was a possibility that The Doctor too, experienced long restless nights due to the thought of her. That his heart is broken in the same places as hers. She wanted to know that she was not the only one hurting from this. She was done with pretending to be okay; clearly, the old Clara would never have been seen dead in a raggedy oversized jumper with holes in the sleeves, her hair thrown up messily into a bun on the top of her head, and barely any makeup on, falling asleep in the middle of anywhere.

She lifted her head lazily, and saw sitting in a booth by the door, a couple happily smiling away. She noticed he was a little older than her, maybe a few years or so, but they looked so happy. At first she was judging how stereotypical it was that they were sharing a milkshake, but she kept watching, she just couldn't take her eyes away. To them, the only things in the universe were each-other and that milkshake, nothing else mattered because they were happy together. Eventually she lowered her head back into her arms on the table to shelter her face from the sun that was streaming in through the window. It was the start of spring, April 4th.

April was too lonely a month to spend alone. In April, everyone around her looked happy. People would throw their coats off and enjoy each other s company in the sunshine; talking, playing, holding hands. But Clara was always by herself. After Ashildr left, she found herself just wandering through time and space on her own. She wasn't really trying to avoid other people but making friends was difficult when really all she could think about was the one person she wanted most. Nobody else compared to The Doctor. Even speaking to other people was hard because she didn't know who she was anymore; deep inside she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind an often even funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all.

The waitress came over as she often did and picked up her cold cup of tea, turning her head sideways as to give a sort of concerned look, she asked "are you ok darl?" Clara was so used to being asked if she was ok but had never really come up with an answer herself for that question. She just gave a little smile and lowered her head again. The waitress sighed, and sat down opposite her.  
"You know, you've been coming here an awful long time, but always alone? Seems to me like you might be missing someone hmm?" she murmured under her breath, to make the conversation a little more private.  
Clara looked up at her and then turned her head over to the couple, who were giggling away still.  
"Ahh" the waitress said "a boy, might have known it's always the boys"  
"You never know it might be a girl?!" Clara retaliated.  
"Well is it?" questioned the waitress  
"It might be, it might not be," Clara replied, sounding like some of the moody teens she used to teach  
"But you're missing somebody, I can tell," the waitress sighed in a pitiful way.

A single tear fell down Clara's cheek, she quickly wiped it away and hid her head in her hands. She felt so embarrassed, she was never the type of person to cry in public and certainly not the type of person to show this sort of emotion to a complete stranger but it was one of those times where no matter how hard she tried to stop the tears, they came anyway, she tried so hard not to cry that her throat got dry and sore but still, she cried.

"Well what are you going to do about it?" the waitress said sternly.  
Hmm? Clara lifted her head out of her hands, confused at her tone  
"look," the waitress continued "it gets better, I'm saying this not because ive experienced it yet but because I believe that 'better' is all in the mindset, for example, if you have high hopes for your future you will feel 'better' because there is a certain excitement in having something to look forward to and a surge of happiness when what you have been craving finally comes your way, but you can't have high hopes without plans or if you don t have the slightest idea how your desired future will look, so let me rephrase that a little, it gets better, but only if you are willing to work towards it, so, what are you going to do about it?"

Clara was a little angry at her but she also knew that the waitress was right. She felt like just slumping in a dark room forever but she knew that she could never get what she wanted like this, and what she wanted was the doctor.  
"I.. I don t know.." Clara stuttered  
"Picture the thing you want most in the universe and decide how badly you want it." said the waitress.  
Stopping, shocked, Clara looked at the waitress. That line, that sentence. It almost confirmed it to her, everything around her was telling her to go and find him. Find the doctor.

"I'll leave you to think about that," the waitress said as she stood, taking the cup with her, she wandered away to go and serve another table. Clara just sat there, she didn't know what to feel or think or do. She felt like in a single second when the waitress said those words, she was thrown back to being with the doctor, travelling, the thrill and excitement of every adventure racing through her in a moment, and for that second she remembered what happiness felt like. It's like she had realised that she should never have given up on something that she couldn't even go a day without thinking about. She thought about how when you lose the love of your life it doesn't matter if you're 13, 30, or 80, it's going to hurt for the rest of your life; about how long after you've forgotten someone's voice, you can still remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness, how you can feel it in your body. She hoped and prayed with all she had in her that the doctor could remember this. That he could remember just enough of her for them to be together again. For her to not have to run away anymore, and not have to live in isolation for fear of hurting again, because she knew deep down that this pain was worse than any upset she could ever feel from being with the man who didn't even recognise her anymore.

With that she picked up her backpack, and left. Unsure of where she was going or what to do. She knew however, that to save herself, she had to find him.


End file.
